andromeda

04 Sep 2018

Brief update: practiced setting up and tearing down the mount on my deck last night. I think I’ve got it down, at this point – was able to get it polar aligned and goto aligned in about 10 mins. Pointed it at andromeda with my camera + 200mm just to see what I could get. Despite the light pollution at my house, still came out pretty well! I think switching to compressed raw helped quite a bit.

• Subject: Andromeda
• Camera: Sony A7S II
• Lens: Canon 200mm/2.8 II
• Aperture: f/2.8
• ISO: 200
• Shutter Speed: 20”
• Light Frames: 40
• Dark Frames: 20
• Flat Frames: 20
• Offset Frames: 10
• Software: DeepSkyStacker and Darktable

Had some trouble with the pixinsight preprocessbatch script – it was complaining about inability to find stars. I’m not certain if it’s the light pollution or underexposure, but DSS had no trouble with it.